Building a high end customer PC

[disturbed6dws]

Please point me in the right direction and comment if there is a better path towards the ultimate gaming

 

 

newegg.com wishlist: http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishli...tNumber=3236186

 

 

 

parts:

 

Case: Sunbeam Transformer IC-TR-US-BK Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply - Retail

 

Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI

 

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 2000MHz HT Socket 939

 

Memory: G.SKILL Extreme Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000)

 

Video card: eVGA 512-P2-N570-AX Geforce 7900GTX 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 - will add a 2nd one later

 

 

Power supply: OCZ OCZ600ADJSLI ATX12V - powerstream 600w

 

Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

 

Monitor: ViewSonic VX922 Black/Silver 19" 2ms LCD Monitor

 

O/S: Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2 and Fedora core linux

 

 

 

 

*EDIT - changed the setup

[Burky]

Well if he only cares about mhz, and not the difference between AMD and intel's architecture, you're going the wrong way by getting AMD, as you will be very lucky to hit 3ghz with an opteron 170, whereas a P4 you'd be getting speeds in excess of 4ghz I think, though I know little of intel.

[p0tter]

Google benchmarks of similiar setups. Try and find some Dell XPS benchmarks and show that the AMD flava crushes them.. and/or is under 1K in price!

 

Check in the OC/database for some results of a similiar setup?

[watsonte]

Whats the customers purpose for the PC...if its gaming I would suggest the SLI-DR Expert...and perhaps a Fortron PSU...Thats just me though...and really I would make sure they know the difference between Intel and AMD...show them some numbers graphs things they can see and realize the difference.

[p0tter]

You could also let him see some of the premade system and enlighten him that all (Dell refuses to use AMD) use AMD in the "top tier" gaming systems. It would also be good comparision in price, probably in your favor.

 

http://alienware.com/

http://www.falcon-nw.com/

 

Some examples

 

I had a hard time explaining to friends that AMD is faster (then P4 in gaming), even using benchmarks!

They finally beleive when I showed that the fastest (and most expensive) prebuild gaming rigs were AMD based.

[disturbed6dws]

*bump - i have updated the parts list - please comment

[Qw3r7y]

I'd go with an x1900xt instead of the nvidia GPU without a doubt if it's an uber gaming rig he is after... get the crossfire mobo instead as even though the Expert SLi is cool (it must be, I have one! lol) the x1900xt poo's all over a 7900 and comes worryingly close to my dual 7800 512 sli's!

 

As for the Intel / AMD issue... point him in my direction. I run both and the Intel machine just doesn't cut the mustard over the AMD. EVER! Even oc'd at 4GHz.

 

You might consider a better PSU for future proofing the build a little as well.

If he were to run RAID, SLi, more case mods etc...in the future he/she may well need more ampage!

 

I'd set up RAID as well... SOooo much quicker in every department!

[cuoficr]

a 2nd HDD for raid 0, 3700+ isnt neccasarily high end either, should stear him toward an Opty DC 2x1mb L2 cache, or an FX series if he is after "ultimate gaming" personally id look at X1900XTX IceQ 3

[ReMoose]

Is there a price limit ?

 

My thoughts are this; put 2 80GB drives in a RAID0 then bump the 250GB to either a 400/500GB drive or another 250GB in raid for storage. that will help out more than a sole 250GB

 

Also the sunbeam is an ok case but i would look at a CM centurion or a Lian Li G50 or PC-7 series case. they are both in the same price range of the sunbeam you selected but dont include a power supply.

[disturbed6dws]

$2000 dollars would be the price limit for this computer - and this 7900gtx has a bigger clock speed than a x1900xt that was recommended - as for switching to crossfire instead of sli, i dont think i wanna go that route since the sli-dr motherboard is a real gem and i wouldnt trade it for anything

 

 

the only upgrade id possibly consider is in the processor upgrade - is there any particular cpu that is recommended over the 3700+ - in the same price range (± $50) - possibly something that would yield a better performance - i also play to overclock it slightly - please let me know if there is something better out there

 

 

...and regarding a power supply, i think ocz powerstream 600 is good enough for that setup ? ....it should be ? right ?

[UncleDavid218]

Clock speed doesnt matter. Look at the benchmarks. The X1900XTX IS better than the 7900GTX. You have to realize that like with the Intel vs. AMD, raw clock speeds don't always matter. Most of it has to do with the CPU/GPUs architecture. The highest end AMD Athlon 64 @ 2.8GHz will beat a 4GHz Pentium 4 anyday.

 

I would also suggest the 600w OCZ GamerXStream, the newer version of the Powerstream.

[disturbed6dws]

okay so - lets say i switch to x1900xt and a crossfire board - what board would be comparable to the sli-dr and would i be able to add a 2nd x1900xt video card down the road ?